Why India is a Blueprint for the Future

In 1947, as India awoke to freedom and self-governance, the world sat back and waited. Everybody waited, smug in the knowledge that India would unravel. Logic seemed to be on their side, India seemed like a collection of incongruent entities. The common wisdom of the day was that India would quickly unravel into multiple smaller states.

62 years later India has fulfilled those dire predictions in part, but for most part India has not only managed to stay together, it has also managed to hold on to democracy, and it also managed to grow into a strong economy. Despite the marked differences in language and culture, India has managed to carve out an Indian look and feel.

Like Amartya Sen likes to say, it is in India’s differences that lays the solution, not in its similarities.

As the world closes in and becomes smaller, India along with the USA is an example how a disparate set of people can become one nation and forge a distinct identity.